Entertaining Personalities
by Jilly-chan
Summary: Spike takes some time away from the Bebop to visit Earth. While he's there, he runs into a woman who shows him he's not the only person trying to live in a dream. Spike/Lady Une (Gundam Wing)


Entertaining Personalities by Jillian Storm  
  
(Disclaimer: Well, I've been wanting to write a crossover for a while now and Cowboy Bebop so quickly became my number two anime series--right behind GW--that I felt that I wanted to try my hand at writing a little bit about Spike. This particular piece stands alone, but I sort of envision that I could write a lot more in . . . none of the characters belong to me nor did their creators ever intend for these series to interact.)  
  
She makes this swooping motion with her lazy hand as she murmurs, "No. Not tonight. Tea makes me sleepy." Her eyelids droop, and the cup finds its place on the table in front of her. On the table that she's leaning against. The tiny muscles twitch the expression of her eyes into a half-hearted scowl. Why is the tea still there? She can smell the bitter twang of tea leaves mixed with orange. That is all that she can smell. They were going to make her pay for this. She was certain. Her vision blurred until she was not focusing on one mug but two. Now she could have company. Her voice mumbles past her soft, numb, warm lips, "Let's simply be quiet for a while."  
  
"If that's really what you want." Long, ghostly fingers wrap around one of the cups and pull the image from her view.  
  
"No. Not tonight." She slurs the thought into her elbow too exhausted to pick up her head and look. Too tired to move the strands of hair from her face. "Not too quiet. That's when the memories sneak up on you." The last word lifted into a questioning tremble. What had she been talking about? Who had she been talking to?  
  
"Memories, again?" The voice is low and reminds her of another man's husky concern. The blending of strength and concern. "Exactly who are you, lady?"  
  
The title buzzes in her ears and she tries to open her eyes, but her head rests against her folded arms as if her neck were weary of holding it. "I was a lady. He called me his lady. His Lady Une."  
  
***  
  
The gentleman, if he would allow anyone to call him that, leaned back and whistled. He wrapped his arms behind him so that his slender fingers laced firm and cool against the back of his neck. He sat still for about three seconds before he grimaced and pulled at his tie, tugging the knot to dangle loosely. The room seemed to become dark and threatening while he watched the drowsy, drunk woman sweat serenely against the table of the booth.  
  
Her chestnut brown hair draped like silk around her face, but--even out of braids--he recognized her now. The hawk-like features, the soft mouth and slanted eyes. Her clothes even looked like the dress uniform of a military officer upon closer inspection.  
  
"Lady Une?" He whistled even as he spoke, the surprise slipping through his rapidly shifting expressions of shock, delight, confusion and--finally--intrigue. "Well, that puts an interesting spin on things."  
  
She moved her lips in response to hearing his voice, but no words were formed. An accidental feeling of fondness slipped past his defenses. He wondered what he should do? What could he do? She was drunk and beyond the cure of hot tea, water or whatever special concoction he could send her on her way with. Debating the possibilities, the lanky man slipped out of his side of the booth and then pulled the Lady Une from her seat.  
  
He half-carried her to the apartment where he had set up temporary residence. He lived near enough to the diner that the distance didn't burden him anymore than her slumped body. From moment to moment, he noticed that her feet shuffled in the effort of carrying their own duties even as she dreamed of walking in another world.  
  
He let the door swing open its full width and slapped the light switch with his free arm. The other limb supported the woman. The grey room was spare with one bed, a nightstand and a phone. He pushed the door closed with his foot and then draped the lady onto the bed. She embraced the pillow in her arms and curled around it. The innocent security demonstrated by her movement caused a grin to accidentally smear his features before he tossed his jacket onto the backboard. He stood by the window and stared down at the little diner. A thin, contemplative silhouette framed from the bleakness of the room by the purifying moonlight.  
  
The next moment he slapped his head. Then with a growl, "Spike, man. What the hell are you doing?"  
  
He lit up a cigarette--orange tipped heat--leaned against the wall and waited.  
  
***  
  
Spike Spiegel burned through one cig and then started another. He wasn't feeling particularly patient and as it was he felt he had good reason to brood. While Faye Valentine and his partner, Jet Black, were scowling around in space for food to eat and bad guys to apprehend, Spike had decided that he was going to take a little vacation on Earth, while keeping an eye out for familiar faces. A familiar face that wasn't a member of the Bebop was without a doubt--trouble. And sometimes, after Spike caught that trouble--he could walk away with a rather substantial bounty as reward.  
  
Still, Spike hadn't intended to stay on Earth indefinitely and the absent ship that Jet called his Bebop hadn't appeared to take him away. Most of those who lived on Earth sought homes underground, away from the dangerous rock showers caused by debris falling from the atmosphere. Away from the ruined buildings and empty relics of prosperity.  
  
Still, in areas of Europe, some braver souls loyal to the origin of humanity established a sturdy society that was regionally spared the more devastating aspects of Earth's altered biosystem. And now he was overlooking the milky green Mediterranean Sea under the sickly yellow sunset. It was a view certainly less than Earth saw in her history. Still, he recognized that he was looking at a landscape fighting to remain unconquered while her people hid in the deepest portion of her belly. The cigarette trembled on angry lips.  
  
***  
  
"We are at war, and the boys who pilot those terrible machines start it. And they are going to end it. And then the other ship aims for earth, to destroy her. In order to burn the whole world. Burn, but I couldn't let them. I couldn't let him. I had to . . ." Her face was flushed and her eyes rolled under the thin pink flesh. Worried.  
  
Spike had found a chair in the lobby and pushed it into the small room. He fell into the orange flannel cushions and watched her as she mumbled through her delirium. His dark curls sunk around his face in weariness. After checking with the local authorities, he knew that this woman who called herself "Une" was considered mentally unstable and dangerous. No worthwhile bounty would accompany her apprehension, but it was understood that she was a menace to society and a danger to herself as long as she remained in the public. Her problem was that the world she thought she lived in was not the real world. Her true identity was lost and overcome by her belief in a fantastical battle between the people of earth and the people of space.  
  
Spike grimaced. Earth had been devastated years ago. Not due to the warfare Une imagined, but due to a hypergate malfunction. Earth was little more than a barren museum to the human fates of failure and tourism. Spike himself grew up on Mars and felt more at home there than anywhere else in the universe-- except, perhaps, flying with the Bebop. No. Spike sighed in self-pity. No place felt like home. Not anymore.  
  
Glancing over at the figure on the bed, Spike knew that he was just as lost- -just as misplaced--as she.  
  
"If only Treize-sama . . . if only I could . . ." She sighed. " . . . see you."  
  
Except, the woman drifting in and out of consciousness in the hazy, warm room could at least *dream* about some place better.  
  
Spike sat alone in the dark and wondered about this woman. He wondered why he found so many desperate people, and then he wondered why he bothered to help them. Sitting in the dark, illumined only by the light filtering through the blinded window, Spike wondered and he stayed.  
  
***  
  
Crushing the dead cigarette under his booted heel, Spike stopped studying the horizon and knew that the Bebop was not coming that day. Not that he knew what he was going to do when the familiar wreck of a spaceship did return for him. On that day he would have to decide what to do with the unconscious girl that was monopolizing his only bed.  
  
Spike had lost bounties before. For some reason, when he listened to what the convict had to say he learned that they were feeling, loving, hurting people--just like himself. And he had this awful habit of listening. Of asking questions and identifying with the answers. He was a successful hunter, but he seldom had the heart to turn them in. Unless they were very bad. Really evil.  
  
Vicious.  
  
Spike's throat tightened at the thought of the silver-haired madman--so appropriately named. If he could collect a bounty on that lunatic, Spike would have a harder time bringing the killer in alive. He could feel his fingers flexing in reaction. He was walking back past the diner and up the stairs to his little room.  
  
Opening the door quietly as to not awaken the girl, he noticed right away that the room was well-lit. Someone had opened the window as cooler sea- salted air pushed past him. Cautious now, Spike let the door open farther. But his instincts reassured him.  
  
The lady was sitting in the chair and watching out the window.  
  
***  
  
She turns and looks back hopeful that it might be *him*. Her heart settles sadly when she saw the lean figure and pale face of the man from before. The man that came so kindly in her dreams to press his cool hands against her face. ~hang in there, girl~ she hears his voice encourage in warm tones. Warm, caring and so bitterly filled with lingering hope. Her cowboy angel didn't deny his own frustrations at the cruel world.  
  
"You." She says politely, and blushes faint pink spots when she realizes she doesn't know his name.  
  
"Sleeping beauty decided to wake up?" the words are sharp, but she detects the affection that his brown eyes can't hide.  
  
"Thank . . . you." She says, again frustrated that she can't recall his name. The man slouches as he stands, one hand stuffed into the pocket of his slacks and the other dangling helpless at his side. His mouth twitches from a dull expression to a small, kind smile. "I'm sorry." She hides her face behind the cascade of brown strings. Her hair is twisted from too many tangles in her sleep. "I don't know . . ."  
  
"You're welcome." He shrugs off his jacket and slumps as he sits on the edge of the bed. "Call me Spike."  
  
"Spike." She tries the word on her mouth and finds that it suits her peculiar rescuer. "It is so good to have a friend. To have someone to talk to." Her voice is sad and gentle.  
  
Spike purses his lips in thought, "So you trust me, huh?" She blinks at him. How could she not trust someone who has listened so kindly? "I don't strike you as the grubby sort who'll steal your heart, steal your money, and leave you stranded?" His voice, contrary to the words, is soothing and tender.  
  
"No." She lets faint happiness cross her lips. "I've had visions of you before and they reassure me that you are very nice."  
  
Spike laughs.  
  
***  
  
Dead, the ashes fell from the tip and blew until they rested on the ground. Joining layers of ashes.He leaned against the building and watches the horizon. The sun came and went that day without any word from Jet or the others. Spike felt a little relief. He still was uncertain what to do with Une.  
  
"I should have gotten rid of her right after I met her." Spike growled under his breath, rolling the half- cigarette from one corner of his lips to the other. Remembering.  
  
Remembering how he was winning the game of pool in the low lighting and heavily smoked air of the 15th floor tavern. Fifteen floors under the skin of the dying planet. In the evenings, Spike avoided looking at the busy, distant, and solitary asteroids cluttering the sky by going to the indoors, and the further down the basements went--the better. He was giving up on anything hopeful, anything magical in this world. There was no reason to look up.  
  
He was winning the pool game. And before things could get any uglier with the losing party, Spike had desperately offered to buy the brilliantly blue-haired thug a drink. He couldn't have been more pleased when the man scowled and turned him down.  
  
"Gee, earthlings can't take an honest game of pool." Spike laughed to himself and turned to the bar for the much needed distraction. He could take charge in any sort of brawl, but he wasn't really in the mood for it. As for that alcoholic beverage, "Bring it on." Spike smirked to the bartender, familiar and willing to drink alone.  
  
The man stopped wiping the dry glasses and worried his hands with serving Spike instead. The only other person actually seated at the bar was a brilliant, beautiful woman of about twenty-five who was talking without pause about the need for peace in the universe.  
  
"We will all die if we don't bring this war to an end," She was speaking into her glass with the utmost sincerity. Fuelled by indifference, Spike shrugged and started into his own drink. After having visiting Earth to have his ship overhauled, he had flirted with the idea of reuniting with the birthplace of humanity. But so far, Spike had simply been oppressed by the emotional drought that marked her inhabitants. They were just as cruel and life was just a futile here as it was anywhere. He stretched out his muscles as he finished the last of his drink and the last of his reasons to stay. He wondered if he should try to track Jet down and leave the gloom early. Still, he was unable to completely avoid the woman's voice as she continued with the same diplomatic imploring.  
  
"Space and earth should understand each other. This is what Treize-sama has always desired. Believe me, Nichol, what I am doing is right. I must fight to preserve the beauty and the harmony of humanity."  
  
Spike guffawed into his glass and the sound echoed back to him. It was distanced and disbelieving.  
  
"Sir, you don't believe in Treize-sama's ideals?" She turned soft eyes toward him. Soft and distant behind the veil of grey atmosphere. She seemed to be sitting in another world entirely.  
  
Spike puffed out his cheeks and planned on leaving. Quickly. "Nope. Actually, I haven't even heard of the guy." He knew his mistake as soon as he spoke. With those words he had encouraged her to continue. In hopes to salvage his solitude, he backpedaled to recover his anonymity, "Not that he isn't a splendid fellow."  
  
Tears and her lips quivered. "I couldn't save him." She admitted, ashamed. "The canon. The devastation on earth. I'm almost glad he isn't here to see how Zechs continued to thoroughly destroy the earth. Ruins, it's all in ruins if he wins."  
  
Spike frowned. "The earth wasn't mutilated by a guy named . . ." He caught himself again. He tried to block the memory of Faye's all-too frequent accusations as her teasing voice passed his thoughts, *Putting your nose where it doesn't belong, eh?*  
  
The girl wasn't listening. "Those boys would weep to see the Earth like this." Her shoulders trembled as she continued, "The darling Gundam pilots must have been unable to stop him . . . " She brushed tears away with the backs of her hands and turned on the stool to face him more completely. Spike hunched over his drink still attempting to ignore her.  
  
"Gundam . . .what's this nonsense . . ." Spike mumbled. His very inquisitiveness dooming his cloistering intentions.  
  
"I once thought they were a nuisance as well." The girl continued hearing him, "But then I realized that they were the future. They had wrestled through the pain of the battle between space and earth and had discovered a path that humanity could follow into wholeness. If only they could have a chance to minister to Earth . . . Treize knew they were the future."  
  
"Sure, I see. A hopeful path for humanity. rr-Right. Check please."  
  
Spike let the sarcasm slip into his language as he frantically flagged down the server. Satisfied, he turned to look at her vacant expression. "Humanity's far beyond hope. Take a look around you." Her naiveté was incorrigible.  
  
*Time for my exit.* And he slid off the far side of his seat and walked toward the stairs. He was going to go back up. Back to the cruelly dry surface set against the wasted waters and the sickly sky. Not even liquor could dull the senses so one did not see the anarchy. It must have been too much for the chick. She was seriously nuts.  
  
"I loved him!" She called after Spike, and he waved one hand to dismiss her without turning. He was not going to mention this to anyone, and he seriously had to stop meeting crazy women. Faye Valentine had enough attitude . . . and Spike was on vacation from that for a while as it was. If only . . . but he couldn't think about beautiful things now. He shrugged back the lingering specters hiding in his own past.  
  
The woman must have followed him. She was more persistent than the environmentalists.  
  
"You don't truly believe that humanity is past hope?" The woman looked even smaller in the moonlight. She pleaded in spite of that vulnerability.  
  
Spike paused, but didn't turn. He knew she would leave if he could only pretended to believe. He was resolved to the gloom of the evening however and picked up his pace, "Yup."  
  
"If you had met them. If you could have seen them." She insisted trying to match his stride with her own faltering footsteps. "It was so beautiful."  
  
"You're nuts."  
  
And then she started. The wail pierced his heart and at the same time it was the most terrifying noise he had ever heard. His breath was broken as he glanced over his shoulder into the shadows, "huh?"  
  
"In my head." She had fallen to the ground, curled in the dirty street and clutched at her brown waves pulling them tight over her ears. "What is this? Where are I? In bits, in flashes." Then softer still, "Oh, help me, Treize."  
  
Spike crouched next to her and she turned her tear-stained face up at him. Not recognizing him, but finding some peace in his closeness. Something about her features triggered a memory. She was dangerous. This face was familiar. Familiarity was dangerous. Did she have a bounty on her head? This fragile-minded woman? Who was she?  
  
***  
  
He wasn't exactly sure what to say to her when he found her awake that afternoon. She'd been in and out of her fever for two days. But he hadn't left her. The way that her narrow arms had depended on his bonded his responsibility to her. An opportunity to treat someone with gentleness. When she was asleep, he investigated his hunch and recalled her particular story from the police records.  
  
Une was schizophrenic as she shifted between two extreme personalities. But on top of that, she also lived most of her life in a fantasy world. In fact, according to the authorities, it was her belief of this other world that led to her split personality. One moment she was the gentle pacifist lady, and the next she was a severe military woman with considerable strength and skills. It was unclear what triggered the change, but Spike was sure that he had met and was dealing with the lady.  
  
It was clearer as she spoke. And she told him very much about her life. Her life that must have been lived in some fantastic place she created for herself, because it was like nothing that Spike had ever heard of before.  
  
When Faye complained, or Jet scolded or Ed babbled he could feel his eyes glazing over and his thoughts wandered to contemplate other things. But Une engaged his imagination and he couldn't help but become interested in her stories.  
  
A world that hadn't experienced a gate disaster, let alone bothered with hyper-space technology. A world in which a kingdom and a princess could live in total pacifism. A place where the ocean was blue and the grass was green. A place where nobility governed the soldier and no battle was meaningless. Where one could find true and dependable love.  
  
But they were nothing more than dreams and stories. It made him hurt to listen. It sounded as if those efforts were almost beautiful. How they fought to protect each other. How they struggled together. How people could be redeemed.  
  
And here. In this cold reality. Everything was so dark.  
  
***  
  
He wondered what hurt her so much psychologically that she retreated into this green world. Not that he blamed her. He asked her questions. And learned more than he expected.  
  
"No. I was not always helpful." Her eyes fell to the floor. "At times, I was deliberately cruel and I failed. I failed to love Treize properly and I failed to love the earth. I made terrible decisions that might have jeopardized everyone. But I have changed." Her voice lifted to a hopeful tremble. "I understand now. I saw them. I saw those boys and I knew their ambitions. To love so much until they let themselves get hurt by it. They bore the weight of the future and sought to save everyone."  
  
Spike had heard that part a dozen times, and each time it moved him. No one like those kids really existed. No one could be that pure. Or stay that way.  
  
***  
  
He sat this time, still watching the horizon. The Bebop would come in the morning, over the dry land into the unsatisfying waters. Then Jet would signal on the radio that they had come and Spike's isolation would be over. Some vacation. But when he finally dropped the smoke, the Bebop wasn't waiting.  
  
***  
  
They sat across from each other in the diner. Spike paid and she always drank orange tea. He never had to worry about conversation, Une chatted without ceasing. Listing names, mentioning places, updating him on her fantasy existence. He felt lost in her unpredictable magic. And he feared the growing necessity to break the spell before he himself was lost in it.  
  
"So, Une." He tried to say her name off-hand and gently. He liked her. "Where are you now? Um, or, how do you get to visit . . ." She stared at him, confused. And Spike stammered a little. He didn't know how to ask. "Do you see these stories in visions?"  
  
She furrowed her brow, "No."  
  
"So, where? How?" Spike tugged his tie which dangled loose around his neck as it was. His brain hurt with the thinking. "The Gundam pilots and Treize . . . and you. Er . . . ?"  
  
"Spike," She smiled with infinite patience, "It's when I dream that I see *you*."  
  
"Oh, yes." His voice joked but he frowned this time. And glanced to the side. And stared at the very real tile patterns on the floor. Orange and brown. Orange in the herb tea. Brown haze sunset through the window.  
  
"It makes me hurt to see the world like this." She turned the other way to watch through the glass at the people walking by them. To the peddlers, some of which were small children. Walking up to the tourists. The wealthy mingled so tightly with the absolute poverty. Insanity laced with hope.  
  
"And I dream of this destruction and I confess my sins to you and then I wake to help promote Treize- sama's dream for a beautiful earth and . . . "  
  
She turned back to meet Spike's puzzled look and whispered. "Sometimes *you* seem so real . . . " She tilted her head to one side and smiled. Disarming, captivating white teeth.  
  
It hurt Spike to look at her. But he couldn't stop.  
  
***  
  
Smoking. He couldn't remember when he picked it up. Or why he had started. It seemed meaningless sometimes and then other times it was the only thing he did that seemed important. Watching his breath absorbed into the emotionless wind.  
  
No messages. He went back to listen to the lady.  
  
***  
  
Spike couldn't understand her, really. She was always there. And she never seemed very different. He deduced that the "colonel" side to her personality was an early phase to help her adjust with reality and now she simply lived in her delusions. And it amused him a little that she thought he was the fantasy when they both were so obviously and hopelessly stuck in the meaningless reality of a barren earth. She was an escapist, and, well, he didn't mind listening to her talk.  
  
The more he let her talk, however, the more she seemed to sink into the fantasy. And this worried him.  
  
*I'm being selfish.* Spike scolded himself in one of their comfortable, mutual silences. *She needs help. She needs a place where she can face up to and recover from whatever broke her sense of reality.* He shuddered to think what could tear a human spirit so thoroughly. And he also understood what it was to be torn.  
  
Une was slipping away from her hurt and into this magical place where boys piloted machines that symbolized freedom. Where the earth was green and the waters were blue. Spike's bitterness was softened. He couldn't blame her.  
  
***  
  
He stopped watching when the communication device beeped. His cigarette almost tumbled from his lips in surprise.  
  
"Jet?"  
  
"Spike? Man, we got into a mess, but here we are." Jet's husky voice crackled through the static of earth's thickened atmosphere. "Actually, expect us tomorrow. I need to get some things in order before I can even land the Bebop."  
  
"Jet . . ." Spike's tenor implied familiar frustration. "What've you done to her?"  
  
"Nevermind." Jet dismissed the question as quickly. "Just be here tomorrow, then let's split. So depressing looking at this planet. Like a graveyard."  
  
Spike turned from the Mediterranean's broken waves back toward the dry, cracked-gold earth that filled his vision. He understood. In the finality of the moment, he whispered to himself. "Yeah, it's time for me to leave. Something about this place really messes with your mind."  
  
***  
  
"I'm leaving." He says. And she knew that it was time.  
  
"It's alright." She smiles at him. "Things are looking so wonderfully now. The new peace has really sunk in and people are living in harmony with each other. I wish you could see it, Spike."  
  
"Me too." And he takes his jacket, swinging it over his shoulder and grabs a cigarette from his pocket. He stuffs it into his mouth and his eyes start to burn. "Bye Une. Take care." He's almost gone when he adds, "Yeah, right--tell everyone 'hi'."  
  
"I will." She nods, still smiling.  
  
***  
  
"You're awful quiet." Faye bent herself over at the waist and leaned full into Spike's face as he lounged on his favorite couch--the mustard-colored one in the belly of the steel Bebop. The same mustard-color as Faye's tomboyish shorts against steel thighs. "What happened while you were on earth?"  
  
If Spike hated three things, one of those would be a woman with attitude. He was very tempted to blow smoke in her face, but something different in him kept him from reacting in kind. Or maybe he knew now what Faye and he had in common. He let the thickness drift upward in carefully crafted rings. Smokey donuts.  
  
"Show-off." Faye wrinkled her nose, realizing that no amount of prying would win her answers. She couldn't help teasing, "Although, it's not like you have any cash to show off. So genteel that you won't hunt bounty while you're on *vacation*?"  
  
"Get lost." Spike mumbled closing his eyes.  
  
His heart ached and he could almost hear the hymns of celebration breaking into his reality from the lady's lingering imagination. He didn't know which was worse: believing that there was no magic or finding that the magic had only been hiding deeper in his heart--pregnant in the belly of the earth.  
  
"No. No bounty tonight."  
  
end.  
  
(Well, I can only hope that I did Spike justice, he's such a complicated character--both sharp and soft, hopelessly cold and unconditionally loving. C/C always welcome at stormy812@hotmail.com or leave a review *wink*) 


End file.
